Sunday, October 30, 2011

Michelle Bachmann said Saturday she would not help children of immigrants who come to the U.S. illegally.

At a campaign stop in Iowa, a Latino college student asked the presidential hopeful what she would do to the children of undocumented immigrants. Bachmann reiterated her hard-line stance that the federal government should not grant them citizenship and said she "would not do anything" for them.

"Their parents are the ones who brought them here ... they did not have the legal right to come to the United States," she said. "We do not owe people who broke our laws to come into the country. We don't owe them anything."

When the subject turned to immigration at another campaign stop that day, Bachmann suggested passing a law that would bar citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are undocumented immigrants. "We've got to end this anchor baby program," she said.

On Thursday, it was Alvarez who was helping lead a forum on cultural diversity to examine issues of hate that have cropped up not just in Santa Ana but throughout Orange County.

The invitation-only event quickly underscored the anger and frustration still being felt.

"How is this going to help anything?" one woman asked.

Said another: "Our civil rights are being violated, and it is kind of a secret thing to get rid of the Mexican community in downtown Santa Ana."

This all comes at a difficult time for the city, which could see a $30-million deficit in the next fiscal year. As of Sept. 30, there was only $313,000 on hand in the General Fund, said Francisco Gutierrez, the city's finance director. However, Santa Ana is still expecting revenue from sales and property taxes before the end of the year.

The battle by Latino business owners against a special property tax, which is what led to Alvarez's Hitler comment, looms large in Santa Ana, where 78% of the 324,000 residents are Latino. Some contend that the tax money benefits businesses that don't cater to families or the Latino clientele.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Republicans on the deficit-reduction supercommittee have proposed steep spending cuts and no new taxes as a counter-offer to the nearly $3 trillion "grand bargain" Democrats put on the table as the committee shows little sign of compromise.

A GOP aide said the proposal offers new revenues without imposing tax hikes, but the offer was roundly dismissed by Democrats. One Democratic aide called it "a joke."

"That doesn't sound like anything that would even be in the league," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the minority leader.

Republicans similarly rejected the Democratic proposal for a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts as not serious.

The public airing of the closed-door talks can be taken as either the first signs of serious negotiations or a rerun of the partisan stalemate that blocked deficit reduction efforts this year.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a member of the Tea Party Caucus, is pushing the boundaries of campaign finance law by seeking to open a super PAC account within his leadership PAC. Having two separate, segregated accounts under the banner of his Constitutional Conservatives Fund would allow Lee to accept unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals.

Earlier this month, the Federal Election Commission announced that most political action committees may open a separate, segregated account to accept such unlimited contributions -- "soft money" -- so long as the funds are spent solely on independent expenditures, campaign ads and materials. Groups with the double accounts are known as hybrid PACs. The FEC issued the ruling after it reached an August consent judgment on the same issue in the case of Carey v. FEC.

The question that Lee raises is whether this new rule applies to leadership PACs, which are created by a lawmaker.

“I’m here to say that we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will,” Obama told the crowd gathered outside the house of Jose and Lissette Bonilla in Las Vegas. Nevada is the state hardest hit by the housing crisis.

Calling the housing bubble “the single greatest cause of the financial crisis and this brutal recession,” Obama promoted his administration’s plan to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages and avoid foreclosure.

“There are still millions of Americans who have worked hard and acted responsibly, paying their mortgage payments on time. But now that their homes are worth less than they owe on their mortgage, they can’t get refinancing,” Obama said.

The new rules, announced this morning by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, include removing caps for “underwater” borrowers and cutting the costs of refinancing. “If you meet certain requirements, you will have the chance to refinance at lower rates, which could save you hundreds of dollars a month, and thousands of dollars a year in mortgage payments,” Obama said.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Googleplex is spreading with Google’s $100 million purchase of a 240,000 square-foot office center in Mountain View, Calif.

The acquisition, reported in the Mercury News and confirmed by Google, is Google’s largest property purchase in Silicon Valley this year. The property, called The Landmark at Shoreline, will house about 960 workers.

Google, which added 2,600 employees in its most-recent quarter, bringing its total workforce up to 30,000, has spent $225 million in 2011 alone buying 15 properties in Mountain View, according to the Mercury News. Last year, Google also bought a 2.9 million square-foot office building in New York City.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Investors are buying up the distressed inventory at a fast clip, but not fast enough.

So why not try to get more?

That's precisely what a bipartisan team of Senators, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) are proposing. The last section of a their new immigration bill is titled, "Increasing Home Ownership by Priority Visitors." It would offer non-immigrant visas to foreigners who buy at least $500,000 worth of residential US real estate. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of caveats that will limit the scope of that potential buying population.

First and foremost, this is not a work visa, and the buyer has to live in the residence for at least six months (not necessarily consecutive) out of the year. That means said buyer would not be able to work in the US for half the year; translation, said buyer would have to be really rich. The buyer would of course have to go through the standard criminal background checks that any US residence visa requires, but they can bring the spouse and kids. The homeowner could not receive any US government benefits, and once they sell the house, they have to leave the country.

TUCSON (KGUN9- TV) - Horse rescues are asking for a leg up, as more people can no longer afford to care for their animals. Some people have even resorted to turning their horses loose in the desert to die.

Heart of Tucson horse rescue owner Judy Glore says she is doing all she can to help the growing problem. Their ranch is full, with 26 horses, and 15 more in foster care.

"There's a lot more horses that are being dumped out in the desert. We're getting lots of calls on horses. People wanting us to take the horses in," she said, "but the problem is we're full."

Part of the reason is because filling up the horses can be costly. The rescue spends $4 thousand a month, mostly on food. The price of ha bale of hay has doubled in the past year, from $9 to $18. It's expected to keep rising.

As a result, some horse owners are having trouble caring for their own, often times neglecting the problem until it's too late.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Eun Chavis seemed like the perfect answer. She was smart, a veteran city employee and a Korean American who spoke the only language Lim's mother, the manager of his building, understood.

But instead of bringing the building into compliance, Chavis used her position at the Los Angeles Housing Department's Koreatown office to collect $16,000 in payoffs from Lim and his family, according to criminal court records, police reports and interviews.

By the time she was arrested, Chavis had allegedly demanded $27,000 from other victims who spoke limited English and were trying to navigate the city bureaucracy.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Buoyed by the longevity of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Manhattan, a wave of protests swept across Asia, the Americas and Europe on Saturday, with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people expressing discontent with the economic tides in marches, rallies and occasional clashes with the police.

At least 74 people were arrested in New York, including 24 accused of trespassing in a Greenwich Village branch of Citibank and 45 during a raucous rally of thousands of people in and around Times Square.

Other than Rome’s, the demonstrations across Europe were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Similar scenes unfolded across cities on several continents, including in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; Hong Kong; Toronto; Chicago; and Los Angeles, where several thousand people marched to City Hall as passing drivers honked their support.

Tax cuts for America’s top earners are costing everyone, every hour of every day, a new report from the National Priorities Project finds.

Tax cuts for the wealthiest five percent of Americans cost the U.S. Treasury $11.6 million every hour, according to the National Priorities Project. America’s top earners will get an average tax cut of $66,384 in 2011, while the bottom 20 percent will get an average cut of $107.

The report comes as party leaders wrangle over the best way to curb the nation’s budget deficit, protesters around the world demonstrate against income inequality and corporate greed and Republican presidential candidates offer their economic plans to voters.

Friday, October 14, 2011

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a key part of Alabama's law that requires schools to check the immigration status of students, temporarily weakening what was considered the toughest immigration law in the nation.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also blocked a part of the law that allows authorities to charge immigrants who do not carry documents proving their legal status. The three-judge panel let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally.
The ruling was only temporary. A final decision on the law won't likely be made for months
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-court-alabama-detain-illegal-immigrants-14739017

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Earlier this year Scott signed legislation that will make Florida the stingiest state in America for people laid off through no fault of their own. Once the law takes full effect in January, jobless Floridians will be eligible for fewer and fewer weeks of benefits as the state's unemployment rate goes down.
One part of the legislation, which took effect in August, has required unemployment claimants to participate in an "Initial Skills Review" for job search assistance. The review is an online test that includes reading and math questions. Claimants have to "complete" the test but not "pass," according to an Agency for Workforce Innovation document.
Scott's proposal describes training as the "next step" in reforming the state's unemployment system. The key initiative will require "unemployment recipients who fail basic job skills testing to enter a workforce training program to learn those basic skills in order to continue receiving benefits."
In addition to boosting requirements for jobless seeking benefits, this year Scott required welfare recipients to submit to drug tests. The same policy, modeled on Scott's example, has been proposed in several other states.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/rick-scott-jobless-benefits-mandatory-training_n_1008867.html

Health insurer Blue Shield of California, which last summer said it would return $167 million in excess profit to nearly 2 million policyholders, now says it will give them an additional $283 million in December.
Policyholders are seeing the first round of money this month through credits on their insurance bills. The next giveback, to be announced by the insurer Thursday, will cut most of the bills in December by more than half.
Individual policyholders will see their December premiums reduced by an average $135. A family of four will get a $420 average cut, but the reductions could be as much as $700.
Chief Executive Bruce Bodaken said the San Francisco nonprofit is trying to help policyholders cope with rising healthcare costs by making good on a pledge to return money when its net income exceeds 2% of its revenue.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/blue-shield-of-california-to-return-more-profit-to-customers.html

Congress has passed free-trade agreements with Panama, South Korea and Colombia, overriding objections from liberal Democrats to advance a key priority for both the White House and congressional leaders.
Backers have billed the deals as job generators that will open up major markets to American businesses and level the playing field for workers. The agreements, originally negotiated by the Bush administration, faced firm opposition from labor groups, progressives and lawmakers from the Rust Belt protective of U.S. manufacturers.
The South Korea pact passed the House on a 278-151 vote, with more than two-thirds of Democrats voting no. The Panama agreement was approved by a 300-129 vote. Colombia, the most controversial of the deals, passed on a 262-167 vote.
Each agreement passed the Senate shortly after with strong majorities.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-trade-deals-votes-20111012,0,2158136.story

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain amplified his criticism Sunday of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, calling the protesters “jealous’ Americans who "play the victim card” and want to “take somebody else’s” Cadillac.
Cain’s remarks, on CBS’ "Face the Nation," came amidst an escalating war of words between Republicans and Democrats over the merits of the movement, which has spread from New York to other cities across the nation, including Washington and Los Angeles.
GOP politicians in recent days have stepped up their criticism of the protesters, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) calling them "mobs" who have pitted “Americans against Americans.”
But Cain, surging in popularity among many conservatives, seems to have had among the most virulent responses to the protests.
Asked whether Cain’s criticism was representative of the party, Ryan said, “I think Herman’s speaking for himself.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cain-occupy-wall-street-20111009,0,972806.story

Rodney Hunt, an oral surgeon who says he wants to retain conservative power in the state, came out of obscurity to become the citizen leader of the cause. Now the success of state politicians seems to hang on his group's support.
It was just after the state primaries, and Hunt, 65, a reserved man by nature, had emerged as something of a Mississippi kingmaker.
Hunt's organization, the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, or MFIRE, had endorsed Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who had just crushed his opponent in the GOP primary and appeared destined to become governor, partly because he was promising voters he'd push for a tough anti-illegal-immigration law — the group's signature issue.
As the tea party members gathered at Flowood City Hall, other conservative candidates made sure to pay their respects to Hunt, an oral surgeon who came out of obscurity to become the citizen leader of this Deep South state's movement against illegal immigration.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mississipi-immigration-20111008,0,77103.story

America's environmental protections are under a sweeping, concerted assault in Congress that could effectively roll back the federal government's ability to safeguard air and water more than 100 years, Democrats and advocates say.
The headlines have not been dramatic, and the individual attacks on relatively obscure rules seldom generate much attention beyond those who are most intently focused on environmental regulation.
But taken together, the separate moves -- led by House Republicans -- add up to a stunning campaign against governmental regulatory authority that is now surprisingly close to succeeding.
In just the year since the GOP took control of the House, there have been at least 159 votes held against environmental protections -- including 83 targeting the Environmental Protection Agency -- on the House floor alone, according to a list compiled by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Credit unions are basking in the spotlight again.
Whenever a big bank rolls out a controversial fee, customers start fuming about taking their business elsewhere and the attention often falls on credit unions. That happened again last week when Bank of America said it would soon start charging customers a $5 monthly fee to make debit card purchases.
This time around, it seems some customers have finally had it.
The country's largest credit union, the Navy Federal Credit Union, said new account openings over the weekend were 23 percent higher than normal.

In the 2010 mid-term elections, Tea Party opposition to President Barack Obama's policies played a big role in slashing the Democrats' majority in the 100-member Senate to just six seats and eliminating their majority in the House of Representatives.
With 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for grabs next year now held by Democrats, and a wave of public hostility to incumbents, Tea Party activists said they looked forward to more Republican gains in 2012.
"We'll maintain the House without a problem. We absolutely have to take back the Senate and focus on that and not let presidential politics consume all of our time and energy," said Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the California-based Tea Party Express Political Action Committee.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/09/us-usa-campaign-teaparty-idUSTRE7980JW20111009?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Politics+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

ATLANTA — The federal government asked an appeals court on Friday to halt an Alabama immigration law considered by many as the toughest in the United States, saying it invites discrimination against foreign-born citizens and legal immigrants.
The federal government filed the challenge to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. It claimed Alabama's new law "is highly likely to expose persons lawfully in the United States, including school children, to new difficulties in routine dealings."
The Justice Department's appeal said parts of the law conflict with federal rules, and that "attempts to drive aliens `off the grid' will only impede the removal process established by federal law." It also said the legislation could impact diplomatic relations with foreign countries.
"Alabama is not in a position to answer to other nations for the consequences of its policy," it said. "That is the responsibility of the federal government, which speaks for all the states and must ensure that the consequences of one state's foray in to the realm of immigration law are not visited upon the nation as a whole."

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Last week, a federal court's decision allowed parts of a law to go into effect that essentially requires police to racially profile people while criminalizing undocumented migrants for being without immigration documents. The law and the decision upholding it shows that Alabama -- in passing the harshest anti-immigration law in the nation -- is still mired in its racist, segregationist past.
The message Alabama sent to brown people by passing this law -- especially those thought to be migrants -- is a simple one: Get out of Alabama. We don't want your kind here.
After years of people putting their lives on the line and going to jail and the help of federal civil rights legislation, Alabama ended legalized oppression of African Americans that barred them from voting, from attending better resourced all-white schools and from many jobs that had been reserved for whites.
But a cursory look at the state's history shows how Alabama was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting desegregation. It took enormous courage, self-sacrifice and the power of the federal government to force change. But by passing Alabama's harshest anti-immigration law, the state has shown that while Jim Crow laws may not exist anymore, the spirit of Jim Crow, which is defined by white supremacy, is alive and well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-rushing/alabamas-immigration-law_b_992801.html

"It is absolutely unconscionable that Speaker Boehner is tripling the cost for his legal boondoggle to defend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act," said Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "At a time when Americans are hurting and job creation should be the top priority, it just shows how out of touch House Republicans have become that they would spend up to $1.5 million dollars to defend discrimination in our country."
One House Democratic staffer pointed out that 23 career employees in House operations have been laid off due to budget shortfalls. House Republicans have still not explained where the money they plan to use to pay Bancroft will come from.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/doma-defense-taxpayers-ma_n_994121.html